You may be on vacation, but your public records aren’t!

King County Information Technology data shows that August is one of the most popular months of the year for vacation. This can result in our King County Electronic Records Management System (KC ERMS) being packed with “Out of Office” email responses – 27,357 right now to be specific!

Below are some tips for keeping these and other transitory records from ending up in KC ERMS.

No camping: Don’t let “Out of Office” notices camp out in your inbox. These are transitory emails and they clog up your inbox making it more difficult to find the important stuff. To declutter your inbox search for “Automatic Reply” in the search box, highlight the messages and delete all.

Take out the trash: Automatically empty your deleted items folder when you close Outlook. Items left in the deleted folder or the trash can slow Outlook performance and are subject to public records requests. To change your Outlook setting to automatically delete messages in the deleted items folder every time you close Outlook, open Outlook, click, File, click Options, click Advanced and check Empty Deleted Items folder when exiting Outlook.

Missing You!: No doubt you’ll be missed while you’re away, but if you don’t want to see a notification of every call you missed while away on vacation, turn off the missed call notification option: Open Outlook, choose File, choose Info, choose Manage Voice Mail, then Outlook Web App will open. Log into that. Make sure you are in the Phone Menu on the Voice Mail tab. Under Notifications uncheck Send an e-mail message to my inbox when I miss a phone call.

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About

King County has more than 13,000 employees who work to make a difference in our community every day. We strive to tell stories that highlight the work we do – in health and human services, law enforcement, courts, parks, wastewater treatment, transportation, and much more – and that also supports our residents, builds strong communities, and helps to make our region a great place to live and work.